◤ 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖙𝖜𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖞-𝖙𝖜𝖔: ❛ in past
lives ❜ ◢

✧

          TO NORMAL VAMPIRES, THE BITE OF A WEREWOLF WAS A DEATH SENTENCE. Natural enemies, it only made sense that a werewolf was as deadly to a vampire as vampires were to every living creature. One snap of the neck with vampire blood in your system and you're in transition, and one bite from a wolf on a full moon meant the end of a reign for a creature of the night.

Yet, for Elijah, an Original and not just any normal vampire, the bite of a wolf was more of an annoyance than anything. It was his punishment from Klaus for doubting him, and Elijah took his punishment seriously while Hayley thought Klaus overreacted. Marisol mostly tried to stay out of it, mostly because she felt bad for Klaus in some sort of way.

She shouldn't. She spent her whole life running from him and now she was under his command, but she related. If her mother knew about her, if she had stayed in her village instead of running, she would've been treated the same way. A monster.

For a long time, she believed she was one. With how her mother turned up her nose at the wolves, didn't let them near her children, and spat at them it was only natural she thought of herself as such a sin. She was a disgrace to the world, to herself, to her old service towards nature. An abomination; a monster.

And yet, she overcame that. Marisol Bigora wasn't a monster; she was a woman and a wolf, coinciding as one but never at the same time. Never a monster. But still, she understood the looks, the creeping acknowledgement that others saw her in such a way. If Magnus ever looked at her as a monster, well, she didn't know what she would do with herself...

Elijah looked sickly, and Marisol almost felt some sort of sympathy for him. Lingering emotions, from when she thought she could love him, but now all that was covered with blood and the realization that she was just a ploy in his game. But now they were friends, and the past was supposed to be forgotten. Nothing more.

"You don't have to stay here," Elijah commented, his eyes trailing up and down her. She felt chills under his stare, residual but uncomfortable.

"I know," she responded, because she could find her way out of the bayou whenever she wanted. It was just...well, it was just that she felt some sort of tug to stay with them. She looked at how he was fairing before stating, "The hallucinations should be here soon."

He nodded, as weakly as he could with how the bite looked terribly infected, trailing throughout his blood. "You could go back to the place you ran to the night before instead of tending for me."

Marisol snorted. "I'm not really tending to you, am I? I think that's more Hayley, I'm just...moral support," she decided, "Besides, the night before was a one-time thing. I'm not going back there."

"Oh?" there was something in his voice, something that went further than curiosity but Marisol didn't place her finger on it. "And why would that be?"

She stared at him, doe eyes staring into his lost ones. "Not that it's any of your business, but I had a fun night with someone who's expressed a great interest me before," her eyes flickered from his when they turned dark.

"But you don't want them?" Elijah asked her, and again she couldn't help but hear something darker lingering in his voice, mixing with them sort of curiosity.

She shrugged. "I haven't made up my mind yet," she said, even though she had. Diego wasn't for her. He was a nice lover, better than others, but there was no spark. She didn't want to waste time in another loveless relationship for the sake of passing time since it never seemed to dwindle for her. Besides, it could ruin her friendship with Marcel, which she didn't want at all.

New Orleans wasn't forever for her, it was temporary, but she wanted to be able to visit after she left. If things were awkward with Diego, and by association Marcel, she'd lose such a beautiful city and yet another friendship.

Elijah hummed, turning his head to instead look at the wooden wall instead of her. Huffing a little, Marisol turned back to the objects held within this wooden cabin, hoping to entertain herself for at least a little while.

Shortly after, Hayley came in with some water, going to bother Elijah (or help him, but whatever, bother sounded better). "Here, drink this," she said in a soft tone. It was almost motherly, maybe, which made sense because she was preparing to be a mother but it melted her into remembering when Magnus was a child.

She liked to think she had the same tone with him, all full of care as she focused on him and him alone. Back then, it was just them, and in some ways it still was. They had grown, drifted apart to travel the world separately, but at the end of the day it was still just them. Magnus still held her heart, and he always would.

"Forgive me. Please," Elijah whispered out, and Marisol tensed, her back still turned to them.

"It's okay," Hayley assured him quickly, and something stirred within Marisol, "Remind to annihilate your brother once you're healthy."

"Yes, remind me to remind you to get in line," Elijah retorted.

Marisol rolled her eyes, turning towards them. "As if you'll actually do anything. Just lay off and let him cool down. Maybe time is all he needs," she shrugged.

Hayley huffed at Marisol. "I don't think that'll solve anything," she disagreed, "And it doesn't help that we decided to shack up in a swamp either."

"I've been holed up in worst places," Marisol shrugged, "At least we have a shack and we're not outside in the swamp."

Elijah began to cough and as Marisol tensed to maybe move, Hayley was already on it, as doting as ever. "Are you okay?" she asked, trying to find any way in which she could help. Marisol balled her hand into a fist.

"I'm fine," Elijah shrugged off her help, "Please, just...return to your reading."

Hayley looked at the book she had in her hand before sighing, "I went through the whole thing. It's just a regular bible...with an entry in a family tree that may or may not be me. But, you know, I've been a little busy worrying about you."

His eyes turned to hers, and there was concern filling them. "Hayley, please. This fever will make me unstable. And once the hallucinations begin, I'll start to see things. You must leave me here."

"I'm not leaving you like this," Hayley said fiercely, eyes aflame as she stood defiantly against him.

"It won't be safe," Marisol shook her head, agreeing with the bitten Original, "He won't be able to discern reality from his memories. If he thinks you're an enemy, he could easily snap you like a twig. It's safer for you to go."

"You say that as if it's not just as dangerous for you," Hayley scoffed, still refusing to stand down.

"It's not. Or, well, it's not as dangerous. I'm cursed to live forever, remember? He won't be able to kill me, so I can help him. You, however, are in a fragile position. Go, save yourself and your child," Marisol told her again, pulling the baby card to maybe get her to listen more.

As she wanted, Hayley faltered for a moment. She bit her lip, thinking, before shaking her head again. "I can't go back in that house alone. I don't want to be anywhere near Klaus right now."

"Rebekah will be there with you," Marisol said softly.

"Rebekah's gone," Elijah weakly admitted, "She told me the other night."

Marisol sighed, slumping in her seat. "Fine," she conceded, her eyes staring into Hayley's, "At the first sight of a hallucination, you run."

Hayley nodded in agreement, and it made Marisol feel at least a little better. Elijah coughed a little again, but he seemed to doze off, which was enough for Hayley to go outside and look through the old bible some more. Marisol stayed inside, her eyes trained upon the sleeping Original.

It wasn't her first time watching someone go through the stages of a wolf bite. Some unlucky few who felt her wrath and were unable to get away allowed her the chance to see what she could truly do to them. She cared for them, in a sick way knowing that she was their murderer and none of her efforts would work, but make them comfortable until they passed to the other side in some sick fascination.

This was different, though. She never wanted the poison from a bite to pass through a person so quickly, to get it over with until they were just dead and limp – so lifeless. She knew the last stage wouldn't happen to Elijah, but she wanted to reach it just for the poison to pass through his system. She still cared about him, some part of her did, and she hated it.

This was the man who hurt her, who tried to slaughter her in a sacrifice, and she still felt something for him. And the sympathy she felt for Klaus, who wanted her dead as well a long time ago...it was sickening. These feelings weren't supposed to exist, and yet she was still plagued by them.

Elijah began to writhe in his sleep, causing her eyebrows to raise. This wasn't a good sign at all, so she rushed to him. "Elijah – Elijah wake up," she shook him, uttering his name again until his eyes shot open in shock.

"Celeste?" he breathed out, surprise and confusion laced in his voice. Marisol let go of her grip, leaning back a little. He said another woman's name, he was dreaming of another woman, there was another woman. This shouldn't be affecting her as much as he was.

He blinked again. "Marisol, I'm sorry. I thought you were someone else."

"Don't worry about it," she shook it off, "Celeste...another lover of yours?"

"Yes," he admitted, a little hesitant to give this up as he stared at her, as if fearful for her reaction.

She gave him a small smile. "Don't act so shy, Elijah. Of course you had other lovers, I'd be a bit concerned if you hadn't. It's only natural, and it's not like I haven't had my fair share either.

By sharing this, she thought it would make him more comfortable, but he seemed to tense even further. Maybe she shouldn't have said that, bringing up their pasts went exactly against what they had agreed on earlier, but in her defense she didn't mention anything from the past they shared together, which she thought the deal was about. Either way, she would keep that in mind. They had to get along for now, so it was best not to make things awkward between them.

"I shouldn't have – I'm not well. I should go," Elijah shook his head, moving to get off the bed but Marisol pushed him back down.

"You're sick, Elijah. You shouldn't move, just lay down and let the poison leave your system. Hayley and I are here to take care of you," she told him.

His eyes met hers, and for a second she thought he was going to say something before his attention snapped to the window. "We're being watched."

Marisol frowned, turning to the window before standing up and going outside where Hayley was. She stood protectively in front of the pregnant werewolf, startling her until Hayley saw the same presence in the woods that Elijah spotted.

"Hey! Hey!" Hayley called out as the figure ran away.

✧

ELIJAH CONTINUED TO writhe in his sleep, but instead of waking him, Marisol turned her attention one of the books left behind in the cabin. She didn't want to know what he dreamed of now, in his feverish state, of the woman named Celeste that had plagued him before.

She must have been something special if Elijah's mind conjured her during this time, someone who meant so much to him to still plague his mind many years later. Or, at least, she assumed it had been many years. In all honesty, she didn't know a something thing other than that this Celeste was his old lover in a past life. In the time between when she ran away and when they were forced to meet again.

Still, it made her want to ball up her fists and punch a wall, knowing that in his feverish state Elijah thought of this woman and nothing else. For some reason, she wanted Elijah to think about her, to remember the dresses he gifted her, the jewelry he bought, the kiss they shared, even if she locked those memories away.

Because she still thought of them, she still remembered clearly every moment, could almost feel where Elijah touched her skin, the way he eyes studied her and the way he staggered for a moment every single time he dressed herself in the expensive dresses he bought for her. She wanted that, wanted him to remember her and not Celeste, and she hated it.

She shouldn't want this. She should be glad that he didn't think of her, instead having Celeste plague his mind, because Elijah wasn't supposed to mean anything to her. He was supposed to be a bad memory, not a figure that currently affected her. And soon, when Klaus dismantled Marcel and made himself king, she would leave.

She would run back to her heart and away from her old soul, and it should be easy. But now as she looked at Elijah, sour that he thought of another lover, it wasn't as easy. She wanted him to be as affected by her as she was of him, to feel the pain she had, to remember her forever.

But she shouldn't want this, this should be her nightmare, the last thing she could ever dream of.

"Hayley, please," Elijah's voice broke the silence as he awoke, pleading with the pregnant werewolf, "This fever. My mind is flooded with these torturous memories. You have to leave."

Marisol straightened up a little. Torturous memories...? Maybe Celeste wasn't as much of an angel as she thought of, maybe it pained Elijah to think of her, maybe she betrayed him.

"What is your deal? You don't like people taking care of you?" Hayley deflected, not listening to him.

His eyes turned dark. "There are consequences for those that care. I will not have you pay that price," he told her sternly, and Marisol swallowed.

He cared about her, that much was obvious, it always had been, and she cared about him. Maybe Marisol shouldn't be here, maybe she should leave them alone, but the selfish part of her didn't allow her to move.

"So, you're having weird, retro sex dreams? Get over it, I'm staying," Hayley shook his head, unwilling to be swayed.

Elijah sighed. "What about our visitor? What does she want?"

Hayley shrugged. "I'm guessing she's the one that left the mystery bible on the doorstep last time. Would be nice if she'd stick around long enough to tell me why."

Marisol flipped another page in her book, trying to concentrate on the words in front of her even though her hears were fully focused on the conversation between the two of them.

"Hayley, you came here to gather information about your family, not to play nursemaid to a vampire with a temperature. Please, find her. Learn what you can," Elijah pleaded.

"No, I'm staying," Hayley told him.

Marisol sighed, looking at her. "Then stay outside. He's getting worse, and soon the dreams will turn to hallucinations. If you see our mystery woman, yell out to us."

Hayley's eyes stared into Marisol's, so she stared back with the same intensity. She was unyielding, having gone through the same matches millions of times with Magnus, and a majority of the time she came out victorious. This was no different as Hayley huffed, shaking her head as she bit out a fine and went to sit on the porch, leaving them alone.

"Thank you," Elijah uttered, "I don't want to hurt her."

"I know you don't. But I didn't do it for you, I don't want Hayley to get hurt either," she admitted, eyes meeting with Elijah's.

He nodded, looking at the ceiling leaving them in silence before confessing, "I've been through this before, it – it shouldn't affect me as much. I guess I didn't expect for her to be brought up..."

"The bite makes you relive painful memories, Celeste must have really hurt you," Marisol commented, hoping that her tone was level and didn't give Elijah an edge of anything else.

"It wasn't Celeste who hurt me...it was Niklaus..." Elijah whispered the last part before his lungs gave out and he collapsed against the bed again, falling into another uncomfortable dream.

Marisol shut her eyes for a moment, wanting to scream, to punch a wall, something to make herself feel better but she didn't. She couldn't. It shouldn't matter that Celeste was still an angel, still someone Elijah obviously cared for it, but it irked her. She hated it.

A moment later, Elijah began to scream in his sleep. Marisol rushed to him again, shaking him until he woke up. "Elijah?" she asked, hoping to clear his head and bring him back to reality, but it didn't work.

His eyes were wide, but they were lost and untrained, full of anger and not exactly right. "Niklaus!" he roared as he sped, pining her to the wall and constricting her airway, "I'll kill you, you bastard!"

Marisol's hands went to his, clawing at it as she tried to breathe. "Elijah!" she tried again, kicking at his legs but he didn't falter. Hayley moved into the room, eyes wide until she moved and snapped Elijah's neck, causing him to fall to the ground.

She breathed in a large gulp, hands going to neck and rubbing the growing wounds. "Thank you," she managed, looking at Hayley who helped her up.

"Of course," Hayley nodded, taking her outside where the figure of the woman from before stood. She had blonde hair, striking eyes, and a stoic face.

"Go," Marisol said when Hayley hesitated, allowing Hayley to let go of her and walk towards the woman who didn't back down this time, allowing Hayley to come close to her.

She turned back to Elijah. She knew she should stay with him, wait until he woke up just in case he woke up in another hallucination, but curiosity got the better of her so she followed after Hayley. When Elijah awoke, he would be able to find them. It would be alright.

"I'm sure you've got questions," the woman spoke, her eyes flickering mostly to Hayley but floating to Marisol for a second.

"Only a thousand of them," Hayley retorted, "Like who are you? Why are you following me? Where the hell is everyone? And, if the people in this book really are my family, what happened to them?"

"I've Eve," she began to answer every question, "I'm following you because you brought an Original to Werewolf Country, which is pretty much the same reason why everybody else skedaddled. If you wanna know what happened to the people in that family tree, I'll sum it up nice and quick: Marcel happened."

Marisol tensed immediately, crossing her arms. She knew that he was involved somehow, but she still didn't like the tone this Eve woman used when talking about her friend. It didn't matter what Marcel had done, he was still her friend, and she had a bone to pick with how this woman threw around his name.

"What did he do?" Hayley raised an eyebrow.

"He killed most of them. Later, the descendants of the ones who dodged death, he strong-armed a witch into putting a curse on them," Eve answered.

"What kind of curse?"

"Swap nature around, inside out. Made it so their natural state is wolves," which was exactly why Marisol referred to them as wolveswere.

She knew that some part of her should be loyal to the wolves, stand with them instead of with a vampire, but it wasn't like Marisol was ever a part of a pack. For as long as she had been a wolf, she didn't have a pack. It was her and Magnus, and sometimes it was other humans, but never any wolves. And maybe, over time from being a lone wolf, she lost any tie to other wolves.

She made bonds through personality and who she liked rather than nature and what she should be thinking about. Marcel was a vampire, but before that he was her friend. And Hayley was someone she saw herself in, so she made a bond there. Not because they were both wolves, but because they were similar. It didn't matter that they both shared the same gene.

Maybe if she was a better wolf, one that grew up with a pack, she would be more sympathetic. Maybe she would stand against Marcel easily instead of trying to find some reason and explanation for him to do such a thing. But her ties towards humanity and evil deeds was loose, more grey than black or white.

"They only turn back human on the full moon. We're hunted by the marks we carry. That crescent moon birthmark – that's why I got rid of mine. I didn't wanna get found out," Eve indicated the same one Hayley had on her shoulder, causing Hayley to pull her jacket up again to cover it.

A creaky door was heard, and Elijah's figure began to approach them. "Good evening," he greeted them, though his eyes turned suspicious when he looked at Eve.

"Elijah, I've got this," Hayley assured him, conveying that Eve wasn't their enemy which made him relax the tiniest bit but he was still on edge. "Are you okay?"

"The wound is healed, the fever is broken, but for some strange reason I have this crick in my neck," as to better paint the image, he brought his hand up to the problem area.

Hayley blushed a little. "That'd be my fault. You were – well, you were hallucinating and trying to strangle Marisol," she explained, as Elijah's guilty eyes found Marisol's. She looked away, not wanting to deal with that yet. Hayley then turned her attention back to Eve, "We have to get him home. But I'll be back, okay? I need to know more."

"Keep that mark covered up," Eve warned her again and Hayley nodded.

The blond walked away from them, disappearing into the bayou as the three of them headed back to the car. "What happened?" Elijah asked.

"I just met part of my family," Hayley told him, smiling a bit. Marisol felt happy for her, even if the circumstances for them being in the bayou long enough for them to meet Eve wasn't exactly the best.

✧

THEY WERE HOME, but not inside yet. Hayley left them, biding them goodnight as she wished to take a nice bath before bed. As Marisol was about to leave, Elijah grasped her arm and pulled her back. "Hayley said I tried to strangle you."

"It was the fever. You were hallucinating, I don't blame you for it," Marisol assured him, because this was the least of the offences he had committed against her. Besides, others had done worse to her when they were hallucinating, cutting off her oxygen was nothing.

"It's not nothing," Elijah disagreed, "I didn't want to hurt either of you. My brain was plagued with fury and I...I shouldn't have let it get to me. I sincerely apologize for harming you."

"You weren't in control. I don't blame you, so don't blame yourself," she told him, eyes locking together. It was easy to fall back into this, back into comforting him and liking him, melting into his touch rather than running from it.

She had grown so much, she had changed and so had he, and yet this still felt natural. Eyes locking together, just them alone, the world lost around them. She didn't want to run anymore, she wanted to stay, at least for this moment even though she knew logically she should just go as far as she could.

"Celeste...our time together got her killed. Truly, it was a cruel and bloody time to be a witch, courtesy of my wonderful brother," Elijah smiled mirthlessly.

"She died because of Klaus?" Marisol raised an eyebrow, though she wanted to run far when he said her name. She didn't want to think of Elijah's other lover, but she still felt stuck here – with him.

"She died because of me," Elijah corrected her, "Because I cared too deeply for her. I had allowed my brother to slip through my grasp. I loosened the reigns while Celeste consumed my every moment. I had abandoned him in the name of my own happiness. Celeste paid the price."

She hated how she compared their own time, their own tragedy, to the one Elijah had with Celeste. It was completely different circumstances, different rules controlling the game. Elijah didn't love her like he loved Celeste.

"You didn't have to tell me this," Marisol uttered, because she wished that he hadn't.

"I know, but I needed you to know. Niklaus always has a knack for ruining my happiness when he isn't directly involved in it," the way his eyes flickered over to her made her think she was also involved in this, but she couldn't have. They conspired together, their relationship was a ploy for Elijah to drag her to her death. It couldn't be anything else.

"Well, it's a good thing you aren't doing that now, isn't it?" she whispered, the illusion that it was just them broken as she opened the door and left Elijah in the car.

It was all a ploy, she reminded herself. They hadn't meant anything before, and they didn't mean anything now. This was temporary, and as soon as Klaus took over New Orleans she could run back to Magnus and far away from Elijah.